Nintendo 3DS price drops below £180 amid sales woes
[Posted by Luke Johnson, T3]
Sub £180 3DS price cut hoped to boost sales
Following a launch late last month that was rocked by reports of a series of health scares, the Nintendo 3DS has seen its price slashed in the UK as the glasses-free 3D console drops below the £180 mark.
Cutting more than £50 from the device’s original £230 price tag, retailer GAME has revealed it is to now offer both colour varieties of the Nintendo 3DS for just £179.99, sparking fears that the pocket-friendly device has seen poor launch period sales.
With 113,000 3DS consoles reportedly sold across the UK in its opening two days, the latest incarnation of the Nintendo portable was soon hit by multiple reports of early adopters suffering a series of health scares following use of the device, with headaches, nausea, eyestrain and vomiting all reportedly widespread.
These health concerns were quickly followed by news that hundreds of 3DS owners were being refused full refunds for their devices just days after purchase as retailers failed to acknowledge the well publicised worries.
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3DS IS BEST SELLING SYSTEM IN JAPAN AGAIN
According to recent Media Create sales figures, the 3DS was the console which sold the most this week, with 28,252 hardware sales. Of course, don’t be too overjoyed yet, that’s a decrease from the sales figures for last week (aka, 32,910 units), and the whole ‘top of list’ thing is likely due to decent game releases and the PSP dropping dramatically in sales by about 12 000 units.
The list (last week’s sales in brackets):
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Interview: Nintendo sold 400,000 3DS systems in first week
[By Mike Snider, USA TODAY]
Nintendo launched its new handheld 3DS game system in the last week of March in a quiet fashion compared to that of its last system, the Wii.
Consumers bought just fewer than 400,000 Nintendo 3DS systems in the week after it was launched March 27, said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “We are very satisfied with this start and we look forward to the momentum that we will build on Nintendo 3DS with the launch of the E-Shop, the launch of the 3-D trailers for Hollywood movies andthe launch of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in mid-June, as well as the launch of Netflix later on in the summer.”
In addition to the 3DS sales, Nintendo sold more than 460,000 DS systems, sparked by the March 6 release of two new Pokémon games, which combined sold 2.5 million copies.
Also in March, consumers bought more than 290,000 Wiis, he says, resulting in a total of 1.1 million units of Nintendo hardware sold for the month. “A very strong March for the Nintendo business,” he says.
Is it fair to compare the launch of the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo DS?
It really is apples and oranges. When we launched DS we launched going right into the Thanksgiving week (in 2004). From a pure timing seasonality, you are not going to be able to compare the two launches. We are going to be continuing to sell DS and that platform is going to continue to build on its legacy of the best-selling hardware system ever in the US. I would love to have the Nintendo 3DS eclipse that, but this is a new platform that we have just given birth to. I would love to have ongoing comparisons to the DS business because that would certainly mean we are doing a good job growing the Nintendo 3DS business.
There haven’t been sellouts of 3DS? Are you purposefully underpromoting it?
I would characterize it as a launch where we learned significant lessons from the launch of Wii and we made sure to have not only ample supply in the marketplace, but we staged supply so it would not sell out. We had product going direct to store and we also had product in retailers (distribution centers), so they could easily replenish when they had stores running low on inventory. That strategy is why you didn’t see massive sellouts on Nintendo 3DS. Obviously, a sell-through of 400,000 units in one week is exceptional. And the fact that we achieved that without people being worried about massive stockouts and shortages just underscored how we properly executed our supply chain.
Are there any foreseeable concerns about impacts on 3DS manufacturing with the catastrophes that have hit Japan?
At this point, we can say that there are no negative repercussions to our supply chain from the tragedies in Japan. But as you know it’s an evolving situation and it is something we continue to review very closely and attempt to manage as small an impact on our business as possible.
See the original post here: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/04/q38a-nintendo-of-americas-reggie-fils-aime/1?loc=interstitialskip